ANOTHER FAMINE

NOW, if you please, I will set clown at once that which
is in my mind concerning it, so that I need not weary
you by repeating. This first year of harvest was a
fairly plentiful one,
and would have
sufficed for all our
wants during the
coming winter, had
it not been that
other people were
joining us by every
ship, nearly all of
whom were poorly
provided for,
hav- [95] ing left England in the belief that we were dwelling
amid plenty.

Therefore it was, that to feed these new comers as
well as ourselves, we were frequently hard pressed for
what was actually needed to save ourselves the pangs
of hunger.

It is true that during this summer of 1631 many
cattle were sent from England; but so many died
during the voyage, that those which lived seemed ex
tremely precious, because from them were we
counting on our future herds. People who had spent their
money in England buying twenty cows, but succeeded
in bringing to Boston only four, could not afford to
bill them for the sake of meat, more especially since the
very rife of our colony depended upon their increase.

We had famine in the first year; we were cramped for
food during; the second year, yet consoled ourselves
with the thoght that when another season had come,
there would be so much seed put into the ground that
there could be no question of lack of whatever might
be needed.

But the summer of our third year in Boston was cold
and wet; the crop of corn failed almost entirely, and
main were we forced to seek our food from the sea, or
to dig for clams; but even this last was extremely
difficult, owing to the exceedingly cold winter of that season.

The Charles river was frozen from shore to shore,
[96] and it was as if the snow fell almost every day, until the
drifts were piled so high roundabout our town that,
save in the very center of the village, we could not
move about.

Another famine was staring us in the face when the
winter came to an end, and we knew that unless help
should reach us from the outside, we could not add to
our stores until another harvest time.

Then it was that we realized the value of having
neighbors, and truly these were neighbors indeed, who,
at Jamestown in the New World, had such store of food,
as would allow them to lade a ship wholly with corn,
sending her, through God's direction, to that port where
the supply was most needed.

Lest I weary you with too many words regarding our
hunger, I will set it down thus briefly, that, except at
rare intervals, we were pinched for food during the first
five years we lived in Boston, and not until that time
had passed were we free from further fear of famine.

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